Data may be communicated over a channel (a data communication channel that includes one or multiple buses of a server, for example), which may be unreliable. For example, a given channel may be relatively noisy and introduce errors in bits of data, which are communicated over the channel. To communicate data over such a channel reliably, forward error correction encoding may be applied to the data at the transmission end of the channel; and at the receiving end of the channel, the data may be decoded for purposes of detecting any errors in the data as well as possibly correcting these errors. One type of forward error correction encoding uses error correction codes (ECCs) that are appended to the data and contain parity information.